Karner Blue Butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis)

Photo by USFWS; Phil Delphey

The Karner
blue butterfly is a small butterfly with a wingspan of about one inch
and the sexes are different in appearance. The upper side of the male's
wings are violet blue with black margins and white fringed edges. The
upper side of the females' wings range in color from bright purplish blue
near the body to dark gray-brown with orange crescents on the edges of
the hind (back) wings. The underside of both sexes is gray to fawn colored
with orange crescents and metallic spots on both the hind and fore wings.

Habitat
of the Karner Blue Butterfly:

Habitat
at a Glance :

Patchy
distribution

Shares
habitat with other rare species

Oak
savanna and pine barren ecosystem

Karner
blue butterflies live in areas described as oak
savannas and pine barren ecosystems. These
ecosystems are likely to contain many different herbaceous plants and
grasses with scattered small groves of trees and shrubs. The open sunny
nature of these systems creates the right conditions for wild lupine,
a plant that the Karner blue caterpillar depends on. Wild lupine is
the only plant that the caterpillar is known to feed on and therefore
critical to survival of the butterfly. Adult Karner blues feed on nectar
from a variety of wild flowers like the horsemint, butterflyweed, and
bachelors button.

Historically,
wildfires and grazing created and maintained savanna and barrens ecosystems.
Wildfires would kill, or set back, trees and shrubs, letting sunlight
onto the forest floor, creating grassy areas. These conditions would
remain until shrubs would start invading the grasslands, eventually
shading out the grasses and herbs and creating a forest. Historically,
any one site did not remain as Karner blue habitat. Instead, intermittent
wild fires created a constantly changing patchwork of these grassy openings
across the landscape. Karners can fly up to about 1.4 miles across open landscapes. So as a savanna
began to be overtaken by trees and shrubs, the butterflies would disperse
to nearby openings that may have been recently created by wildfire or
were being maintained by grazing mammals such as bison.

Prescribed
burns are used to mimic historic conditions and manage for savannas
and pine barrens. Management for these ecosystems provides habitat
for the Karner blue butterfly.

Today,
wildfires are practically nonexistent. The disturbance that wildfires
once created is now sometimes replicated by logging practices or mowing
along power lines and roadways where the rights-of-way are kept clear
of trees and shrubs. On some public lands, land managers use timber
harvests, mowing, grazing, herbicides, and controlled burns to manage
for oak savannas or pine barrens.

Karner Blue Habitats Support Other Rare Species

The savanna
and barrens ecosystems that support Karner blue butterflies are almost
as rare as the butterfly itself. There are also many other plant and
animal species that use these ecosystems for all or part of their life
cycle. The rarest of these include: in the eastern United States, the
Persius duskywing (Erynnis persius) and the frosted elfin (Incisalia
irus). These are butterflies that also depend on the wild lupine
of the pine barrens and oak savanna ecosystems. In Indiana, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, and Michigan savannas and/or barrens provide habitat for
the phlox moth, eastern massasauga rattlesnake, Blanding's turtle, loggerhead
shrike, and prairie fame flower, all of which appear to be species with
declining numbers.

Relationship
to Wild Lupine

The Karner blue requires wild lupine (Lupinus perennis),
the only plant its caterpillar is known to feed on and therefore critical
to the butterfly's survival. The Karner blue usually lays two batches
of eggs each year. Eggs laid the previous summer hatch during mid-April
when the lupine are first coming up. The caterpillars feed on wild lupine
leaves and are commonly tended by ants. It appears the ants protect
the caterpillars from some natural enemies and that the ants in return
collect a nectar from the caterpillar. Once mature, the caterpillars
form a cocoon around themselves; this happens about the end of May or
early June. Within about two weeks the adult butterflies emerge from
their cocoon and begin laying eggs on the lupine plants.

These eggs
hatch, the caterpillar feeds on the lupine, matures, then forms a cocoon;
adults again emerge in July. By the time that these butterflies are
ready to lay eggs, many of the lupine plants have died back and eggs
are laid on old lupine stems, on plant litter, and on grass blades near
wild lupine. By the end of August or early September all adult butterflies
have died. Their eggs overwinter and do not hatch until the following
spring.

Because
their eggs fall to the ground or are laid on leaf litter, or on stems
of lupine or grasses that fall to the ground, it is the winter snows
that protect the eggs from freezing temperatures and from dehydration.
The range of Karner blues only overlaps with the range of wild lupine
where there are long periods of winter snowpack. Wild lupine is found
in far more areas than Karner blues; its range extends across the Great
Lakes states and down the east coast to Florida.

Adult Karners
feed on nectar from many different wildflower species, but because the
caterpillar can only successfully feed on wild lupine, the reproductive
success of Karner blue butterflies is critically dependent on the wild
lupine.

Where
Have All the Butterflies Gone?

Photo
by: Ann B. Swengel

Karner blue
butterflies once occurred in a nearly continuous narrow band across twelve
states and the province of Ontario, Canada, but it has been eliminated
from at least five of those states and Ontario. Today it is found in portions
of New Hampshire, New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and Minnesota.
Over the past century, the number of Karner blue butterflies has declined
by at least 99 percent across their historic range.

Small remnant populations (and a few larger populations) remain in Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, Indiana, and Ohio. Reintroduction programs are ongoing in Ohio, New Hampshire, and Indiana with the goal of establishing healthy populations of the butterfly in those states. Wisconsin and Michigan lie in the heart of Karner range where Karner blue butterfly sites are more numerous but still require management and restoration to restore and maintain viable populations of the species.

Why
Are They So Rare?

Causes
of Decline
At a Glance:

Wild
fire suppression

Habitat
loss from urban development

Habitat
fragmentation

Small
remaining populations

Specific
Niche

The single
most important factor causing the decline of the Karner blue butterfly
across its range has been the loss of habitat due to suppression of wild
fires, clearing land for farming, and developing land for commercial and
residential purposes. Without disturbance activities such as fire and
grazing, shrubs and trees invade the open savanna and barrens and shade
out the grass and herbaceous plants, including wild lupine. When this
happens, only pockets of grassy areas remain, making it hard for butterflies
to find more areas with wild lupine, and limiting the amount of habitat
available. This results in small isolated populations of Karner blue butterflies.
The Karner blue butterfly's habitat is very specific, and the butterfly
is unable to adapt to these changes in its environment. Habitat loss,
isolation of populations, combined with the extremely small size of many
of the remaining population, puts these populations at high risk of "winking
out."

The Karner
blue habitat in the Albany Pine Bush, which once covered as much as
40,00 continuous acres, has been reduced to 2,000 acres. These 2,000
acres are dissected by barriers to butterfly dispersal such as roads
and buildings and are subject to disturbance by off-road vehicles and
horseback riding. The pine barrens in New Hampshire have largely been
destroyed as a result of industrial, commercial, and residential development;
road and airport construction; and gravel and sand mining. In Wisconsin,
remaining habitat is threatened by encroachment of nearby forests, conversion
of barrens to pine plantation, and commercial and urban development.
Development and agricultural land conversions have been a major contributor
to the habitat loss in Michigan.

What Is Being Done?

Management
for Karner blue butterflies in most cases means management for the oak
savanna and pine barrens ecosystem. In some cases it is hoped that recovery
can be realized on lands managed for other purposes such as non-intensive
forestry operations or military operations such as those conducted at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin.

Savanna and
barrens ecosystems are as imperiled as the butterfly. Restoration and
protection of savannas will lead to the recovery of Karner blues. So synonymous
are Karner blue and savanna management that Necedah National Wildlife Refuge has a savanna restoration
and management plan instead of a Karner blue management plan. The result
of their plan has been the establishment of a large viable population of Karners
and progress towards recovery of the species.

Wisconsin,
the state with the greatest number of butterfly sites, developed a
Karner Blue Butterfly State-wide Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP). As of 2006, there
are 40 partners in the HCP, with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
being one of the major partners and lead in this effort. Other partners
include major forestry stakeholders, conservation organizations, county
forest departments, utility companies, private landowners, The Nature
Conservancy, and the Wisconsin Departments of Agriculture and Transportation.
This plan was developed to ensure that management and restoration
of Karner blue habitat continues even though some habitat may be destroyed
or degraded by partner activities.

To ensure conservation of
the Karner blue, all partners plan to incorporate conservation measures
for the butterfly into their land management activities (e.g. the use
of herbicides in forestry operations will be adjusted to enhance the growth
of wild lupine). The partners are also developing an outreach and education
strategy to further conservation of the butterfly and its habitat on other
private lands in Wisconsin.

In other
States, protection and restoration of savannas is occurring on many public
lands, both Federal and State. And interested private landowners are providing
savanna habitat for Karner blues. The Huron-Manistee National Forest and
the Michigan DNR are playing major roles in habitat restoration in Michigan
as is the National Park Service's Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore and
TNC in Indiana. Habitat restoration efforts are ongoing on state property
in Minnesota and on TNC, state, and private property in New York. The
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and a host of other public and non-governmental
conservation organizations, most notably the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, have undertaken significant
protection and enhancement efforts in New Hampshire. The Karner blue has
been designated the official butterfly of the City of Concord as well
as the state of New Hampshire.

The U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service prepared a Karner Blue Butterfly Recovery
Plan that outlines a strategy for recovering the butterfly
range-wide. It identifies tasks to restore
habitat and stabilize and recover Karner blue populations. The Recovery Plan
was published in 2003 and is available online (1.6MB, 293 pages).

Why
Should We Be Concerned?

Reasons
for ConcernAt a Glance:

Species
are valuable in the balance of nature and operation of ecosystems

Loss
of potential resources for humans will likely reduce our quality
of life

Since the
landing of the Pilgrims in 1620, more than 500 species, subspecies,
and varieties of our Nation's plants and animals are known to have become
extinct. In contrast, during the Pleistocene Ice Age, all of North America
lost only about three species every 100 years. This recent, catastrophic
loss of biological diversity is continuing at an unprecedented rate.
Each and every species has a valuable ecological role in the balance
of nature and each loss destabilizes that fragile balance. Once a species
is extinct, it is lost forever.Experience has proven that many plants
and animals have properties which will prove beneficial to humans as
sources of food and medicine. With the loss of each species, we lose
a potential resource for improving the quality of life for all humanity.

Karner
blue butterflies are endangered primarily because the savanna and barrens
ecosystems that they depend on for survival are also endangered. Recovering
the Karner means recovering these unique and interesting ecosystems.
Restoring these systems will not only result in recovery of Karner blue
populations, but will also help stabilize and enhance the populations
of many other species of plants and animals that depend on these ecosystems
for survival.